I am an early riser. If you ever saw that typical film scene of a sleepy camp at dawn and suddenly hear the blaring wake up trumpet. Well, I'd be that person on the roof enthusiastically emptying my lungs to get your butt up.

Being a morning person was also very useful during uni when I still had extra quiet hours to cram in knowledge for tests and exam. Sleep was good as I went to bed around 10 pm and got up around 5 or 6 am.

But that all changed when I moved to Hong Kong and got a job in the fashion industry. It was work hard play hard. Sleep took a back seat. Napoleon could conquer Egypt on 2 hour shut eye every night. Should be easy-peasy for me to make a Chinese factory adhere to schedule with 4 hours.

But with every hectic day and less sleep I was digging myself a hole until one point I would wake up in the middle of the night, widely awake and wondering about an excel sheet. It did not take long until I would wake up, very alert and worrying about more excel sheets. From there it went down hill and my thoughts became loud chaotic back ground noise which I had no control over and which kept me awake at night.

I thought I was "only" a bit stressed and just had to go to bed earlier again. Maybe listen to a Paul McKenna CD. On good days (not so often) it would work. I could get 6 hours but on the usual bad days even Paul McKenna's timbre voice and all whale songs in the world could not calm my over-night-active mind leaving me desperate. This was not normal.

Racing thoughts

"It's normal." Stuart, a Twitter friend, wrote. "I have it, too. It's called racing thoughts." Stuart MacLean was like me living in a hustling and bustling city and had a hectic job. When I discovered trail running for myself he found his calling in cycling. Although separated by multiple time zones we had a common chat time window when I was wide awake at 3 am in Hong Kong while he was in London just getting ready for the mind battle ahead.

Thanks to Stu, I knew I was not a nut case, but I surely felt like one. The situation did not improve much even after I quit my job and started training for my first ultra endurance event. Many long training sessions 30-40k on Hong Kong trails were during the night to avoid the heat during day time. I would come home after midnight wired from training and the caffeine in my gels.

So I tried to cope with this irregular sleeping pattern for two years until I stumbled over an article about adrenal glands. When under too much stress adrenals can become imbalanced and release too much cortisol.

Cortisol which got a bad rep for also being labeled the stress hormone is an important hormone which probably saved the butts of many of ancestors running away from predators.

It initiates glucose metabolization to provide the body with an instant burst of energy when in danger. It also heightens our memory functions and lowers pain sensitivity so we still remember where to run and keep on running although that tiger already took a small bite at us. Thanks to cortisol that bite will go through a healthy inflammation process so that the body can start the repair work. Cortisol is therefore not a bad thing. But having too much of it, like it's so often the case, is. Too much of it causes you to be alert during times where you should be calm and asleep. Instead of being stressed for only short amounts of time, your body is siege mode and you entered the swamp of chronic stress.

My perfect mix

All the popular Paleo websites emphasize the importance reducing stress which is the first important step to better sleep. Once we get enough shut eye everything improves, from our workout, recovery, body composition to quality of life. Better sleep makes us better people.

Like most desperate souls I gave sleeping tablets a try but it the sleep was not refreshing. I woke up tired and stayed tired for the entire day. Had a similar experience with melatonin. If the dosage was too low I did not feel a thing but if the dosage was too high I would feel sleepy until midday. Problem was that the right dosage changed every day. One night 3mg would be just right but too much the next. I was far away from being a better person since I was cranky half of the time.

It took me another 3 months, Robb Wolf's "The Paleo Solution" and two episodes of his podcast to find my perfect mix. I call it MY perfect mix because it works for me. It could but does not necessarily have to work for you. You might want to have your adrenal glands tested first. You should consult your physician or enquire with theHong Kong Pacific Diabetes and Endocrine Centre.

So this is what I did (Again, I'm not a doctor, just my own guinea pig)

Come to the dark side: No. I don't mean Kowloon. In his book Robb Wolf emphasizes to get rid of all the blinky lights in your room. It has to be pitch dark when you go to sleep so your brain gets the visual cue: It's sleepy time. Hong Kong is known for its light pollution. Even with the curtains drawn the lights from the other buildings shine through and I'm still able to see my hand at night. So I pinned black thick garbage bags to my curtains. Result: Deeper sleep. I still had racing thoughts but the quality of my sleep episodes were better and I woke up later.

Wind down early enough in the evening: That means start chill and relax once it gets dark. That's around 7 pm in HK. Make an concious effort to wind down and give your mind some prep time to get ready for bed. Back off the computer 1 hour before you go to sleep. Yeah, I know. I'm also still working on that.

Supplements: 30 minutes before I go to bed I take 200 mg of phosphatidylserine (also known as Seriphos), 133 mg of magnesium citrate, 200 mg of calcium, 4000 IU of vitamin D3 and 600 mg of EPA/ DHA from fish oil. What I found is that it really helped against racing thoughts. I assume that phosphatidylserine is doing the main work and the other sups have a synergistic effect to it. When I took that combo the first time I had no bouts of alert thoughts yanking me awake. I still have not worked up my way to 8 hours but today I managed 7 hours. One hour to go... wohoo.

Avoid hard evening/ night workouts: Now this is a tricky one. Most of my clients only find time to workout after work. But hard workouts cause the release of adrenalin and cortisol and you don't want that. Some do take Seriphos immediately after workout to wind down. In this case I myself take 5 mg of melatonin right after workout.

I cannot emphasize enough that when you add in new supplements to really get yourself checked first. Although I have not consulted with a doctor myself my last physical examination was not that long ago and I know that it's relatively safe for me to take those supplements mentioned above. Main objective is for you to get better therefore check if those things will actually make you better.